This Thursday (April 11) at 1 pm on the first floor of BLS Library, BLS Reference Librarians/Adjunct Professors of Law Loreen Peritz and Sue Silverman will offer a program on free sources for legal research. To accompany their program, Loreen Peritz also created this publicly-accessible research guide: Sources of Free Legal Research. Knowledge of reputable free sources can help you to conduct cost-effective research. Refreshments will be served at this program!
Also, our staff noticed that the two bulletin boards for student announcements of BLS events (located outside of BLS Library’s Nash reading room, by the third floor main elevators) were often overflowing with notices. So, there are now additional bulletin boards for your announcements. There are signs on the two center bulletin boards stating: This Week: Events. BLS students can place announcements about the current week’s BLS events on these two central boards. Students can place signs about BLS events occurring farther in the future (or events that might not have a specific date) on the additional bulletin boards.
Below is a description of a free, half-hour Zoom program tracing the history of languages in New York City. This program requires free online registration. Note: BLS Library is purchasing multi-user electronic access to Ross Perlin’s new book, Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York. (We expect the vendor to provide us with access to this ebook within a few days.)
The description of this program at New York Historical Society’s website states: “Four centuries ago, what had been a Lenape-speaking archipelago suddenly became New Amsterdam—a crossroads of Native American, European, and African cultures. Here, 18 languages were reported as being spoken within the first few decades, and the number is likely far greater. Join Ross Perlin, author of the new book Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, and Russell Shorto [director of the New Amsterdam Project at the New-York Historical Society] as they trace this history of language and how it set the template for the city’s extraordinary transformation into one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the world.”
Also, New York Historical Society has a new installation: New York Before New York: The Castello Plan of New Amsterdam. New York Historical Society states it offers “pay as you wish” admission on Friday evenings from 6-8 pm. (NYHS generally charges students $13 for admission.) Also, beginning on April 1 at midnight, those with Brooklyn, New York or Queens Public Library cards will be able to try to reserve one of the limited number of free “Culture Passes” offering free admission to New York Historical Society. (Each month, a new group of Culture Passes becomes available.)
Note: BLS librarians have created 50+ research guides to support your work, and we encourage you to submit your research questions through email: askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu and text: 718-734-2432.
King: A Life (2023) by Jonathan Eig (call #: E185.97.K5 E44 2023, location: Main collection)
Excerpt from author’s website: “The first King biography written with access to thousands of recently released pages of FBI files as well as thousands of personal papers from King’s associates and friends.”
Excerpt: “Dr. King’s mission was a moral one: from bridges and ballot boxes to pulpits, protests, and courthouses, he courageously stood for the sacred idea that embodies the soul of our Nation — we are all created equal in the image of God and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. He vocalized that idea on an August day in 1963 when he told our Nation about his dream. He saw that idea realized for many Americans with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ushering in a new era of greater equality and opportunity in our country. That work is not yet finished. It is the task of our time to take up Dr. King’s mantle and make his dream a reality.”
We understand that some students will be working remotely during the BLS Winter Recess (Dec. 22 – Jan. 2). We recorded our BLS Library presentation on how to prepare to access digital books, encyclopedias and databases from remote locations. The recording of this presentation is now available in Canvas (within BLSConnect). The Canvas “course” is: Librarians’ Research Presentations > see module: Material From Librarians’ Alcove Academy Presentations > click link: Librarians’ Presentation: “Preparing for Remote Research During Winter Recess.” A key point was: email: askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu or text: (718) 734-2432 soon for help identifying and collecting sources to use during Winter Recess.
Thank you to those who attended! We always appreciate your feedback on the library/our services, and we look forward to providing you with research suggestions.
Lenape Center is a nonprofit organization that states it is “[c]ontinuing Lenapehoking through community, culture and the arts” and “[w]orking towards the creation of a cultural center.” Lenape Center’s work includes curating exhibitions (including the virtual exhibit Lenapehoking), developing educational programs, and creating Lenapehoking: An Anthology. Brooklyn Law School Library, Brooklyn Public Library and New York Public Library provide multiple copies of this insightful and powerful book. On p. 14 of the Introduction, Joe Baker (Co-Founder/Executive Director of Lenape Center) states: “This anthology of essays and interviews features leading Indigenous scholars, culture bearers, and artists offering important new scholarship and knowledge of Lenape culture and history that is not readily available to the general public.” On March 6, 2023, there was a “Live from NYPL” event at which contributors to Lenapehoking: An Anthology “explore[d] the personal journeys of people seeking welcome in their ancestral homeland while pushing back against their erasure.” This event video is available here.
This database includes: the subcollection Indigenous Peoples Treaties (400+ full-text treaties) and treaty-related publications; each edition of United States Code Title 25 and Code of Federal Regulations Title 25; the Indian Law Reporter (published: 1974-2013) and additional serials; a subcollection of tribal codes (published: 1981 and 1988); a subcollection of constitutions, acts and by-laws; selected Native Nations Law & Policy Center publications such as The Need for Confidentiality within Tribal Cultural Resource Protection and Tribal Implementation Toolkit; Model Tribal Probate Code; nearly 50 federal legislative histories; Congressional hearings; scholarly articles; other related works (books and pamphlets); and a bibliography. This database is accessible on campus through the BLS network or off campus through a web browser that communicates with the BLS proxy server. The library team hopes this database will assist BLS students in the spring 2024 seminar: Native American Law. Feel free to email: askthelibrary@brooklaw.eduor text: (718) 734-2432 for help in using this new resource.
The American Law Institute describes itself as “the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and improve the law.” From the bedrock Restatements on contracts, property and torts to the influential Uniform Commercial Code to the current project on Children and the Law, ALI’s legal experts have crafted (and continue to develop) key documents to aid courts, legislatures, agencies and law teachers/students. As ALI celebrates one hundred years of codifying and developing law, BLS librarians are proud to note that ALI’s history is Brooklyn Law School’s history. Many BLS current and emeritus faculty are ALI members: William D. Araiza, Miriam H. Baer (Vice-Dean), Anita Bernstein, Dana Brakman Reiser, Neil B. Cohen, James A. Fanto, Marsha Garrison, Andrew Gold, William E. Hellerstein, Alexis J. Hoag-Fordjour, Edward J. Janger, Beryl R. Jones-Woodin, Roberta S. Karmel, Brian A. Lee, David D. Meyer (President and Dean), Samuel K. Murumba, Norman S. Poser, David Reiss, Alice Ristroph, Elizabeth M. Schneider, Winnie F. Taylor, Aaron D. Twerski and Joan G. Wexler (Dean and President Emerita). We invite you to view a display highlighting ALI and BLS faculty’s work on noted ALI texts and projects in the third-floor Nash reading room.
BLS patrons also can review the texts featured in this display through HeinOnline’s American Law Institute Library (a subscription database accessible on campus through the BLS network or off campus through a web browser that communicates with the BLS proxy server).
On Monday at 6 pm, BLS Professor Andrew Gold and his co-editor Robert W. Gordon (Professor of Law Emeritus, Stanford Law School) will lead a book talk and discussion in the BLS Subotnick Center on their new work: The American Law Institute: A Centennial History. As noted in its introduction, this book is a collection of essays on certain ALI undertakings. Essay authors include a number of current and former Reporters involved in Restatement projects. The chapters raise questions like: What does it really mean to “restate” the law? How does a Restatement change the direction of law? Chapter 5 has the intriguing title: “Canon and Fireworks: Reliance in the Restatements of Contracts and Reliance on Them.” BLS patrons can access a digital version of this book on campus or off campus through the BLS proxy server.
Check out their new books on the first floor of Brooklyn Law School Library.
Brooklyn Law School Library is featuring our faculty’s new books in a rotating display at the first-floor circulation desk. All of these books are available for BLS patrons to check out. Many of these sources also are accessible digitally.
The first display showcases (in alphabetical order by author):
Miriam Baer, Vice Dean and Centennial Professor of Law, author of:
Myths and Misunderstandings in White-Collar Crime (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
For digital access, click: here > in the library’s catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – CAMBRIDGE. Remote access requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions. Call number and location of the circulating print copies: KF9350 .B34 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. Also, there is a copy on first-floor Reserve.
Upcoming event: Book discussion featuring Vice Dean Baer – more details coming soon.
Date/location: Oct. 17, 2023, Brooklyn Law School, 250 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn NY
Cambridge University Press book description:
“Myths and Misunderstandings in White Collar Crime uses real world examples to explore the pathologies that hamper our ability to understand and redress white-collar crime. The book argues that several misinterpretations about white-collar crime continue to impede its enforcement, including: its failure to be classified according to degrees of severity in many jurisdictions; its failure to statutorily parse groups of defendants into major and minor players; and the failure of statutes to effectively define crimes, leading to the prosecution of ‘unwritten’ crimes. Miriam Baer offers a step-by-step framework, informed by theories of institutional design and behavioral psychology, for redressing these misunderstandings through ‘code design,’ or paying greater attention to how we write, frame, and lay out our federal criminal code, as a roadmap to more coherent and useful laws. A clearer, subdivided criminal code paves the way for a discussion of white-collar crime unmarred by myths and misunderstandings.”
Andrew Gold, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Business Law and Regulation, co-editor (with Robert Gordon) of:
The American Law Institute: A Centennial History (Oxford University Press, 2023)
For digital access, click: here > in the library’s catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – OXFORD. Remote access requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions. Call number and location of the circulating print copy: KF294.A5 A513 2023 in cellar-level Main collection.
“This book collects together a series of original essays in honor of the American Law Institute’s (ALI’s) Centennial. The essays are authored by leading experts in their fields, often including current and former Restatement Reporters. The essays also provide a wide range of perspectives on both methodology and the law. The volume coverage focuses on specific ALI undertakings, including some of the more important Restatements and Codes; several leading Principles projects; statutory projects such as the Model Penal Code and the Uniform Commercial Code; themes that cut across substantive fields of law (such as Restatements and codification or Restatements and the common law); and the ALI’s institutional history over the past century. The resulting book is a unique and compelling contribution to its fields of study.”
Coming in October 2023: A BLS Library display commemorating American Law Institute’s 100th year anniversary and highlighting BLS faculty’s key contributions to ALI’s Projects.
Susan Herman, Centennial Professor of Law and former President of the American Civil Liberties Union, author of:
Advanced Introduction to US Civil Liberties (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023)
Call number and location of the circulating print copy: JC599.U5 H47 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. Also, there is a copy on first-floor Reserve.
Upcoming event: Civil Liberties: The Next Hundred Years (in-person/virtual (via Zoom) panel discussion featuring Professor Herman and other civil libertarians)
Date/time/location: Oct. 13, 2023, 5:00 pm ET, Brooklyn Law School, Subotnick Center, 250 Joralemon Street, Brooklyn NY
Edward Elgar Publishing book description:
“This insightful Advanced Introduction provides a kaleidoscopic overview of key US civil liberties, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion, limitations on search and seizure, due process in criminal proceedings, autonomy rights, rights of equality, and democratic participation.”
Jocelyn Simonson, Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship, author of:
Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Incarceration (The New Press, 2023)
For digital access, click: here > in the library’s catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – EBSCO. Remote access requires implementation of the BLS proxy server instructions. Call number and location of the circulating print book: KF9632 .S56 2023 in cellar-level Main collection. Also, there is a copy on first-floor Reserve.
Date/time/location: Oct. 23, 2023, 6:30 pm ET, Center for Brooklyn History, 128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn NY
The New Press book description:
“From reading books on mass incarceration, one might conclude that the way out of our overly punitive, racially disparate criminal system is to put things in the hands of experts, technocrats able to think their way out of the problem. But, as Jocelyn Simonson points out in her groundbreaking new book, the problems posed by the American carceral state are not just technical puzzles; they present profound moral questions for our time.
Radical Acts of Justice tells the stories of ordinary people joining together in collective acts of resistance: paying bail for a stranger, using social media to let the public know what everyday courtroom proceedings are like, making a video about someone’s life for a criminal court judge, presenting a budget proposal to the city council. When people join together to contest received ideas of justice and safety, they challenge the ideas that prosecutions and prisons make us safer; that public officials charged with maintaining “law and order” are carrying out the will of the people; and that justice requires putting people in cages. Through collective action, these groups live out new and more radical ideas of what justice can look like.
In a book that will be essential reading for those who believe our current systems of policing, criminal law, and prisons are untenable, Jocelyn Simonson shows how to shift power away from the elite actors at the front of the courtroom and toward the swelling collective in the back.”
Feel free to email askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu, text (718) 734-2432, or visit the circulation desk for help accessing these new books.
Note: BLS students, faculty and administrators can access the sources below on campus, in BLS housing, and elsewhere off campus if one has implemented the BLS proxy instructions.
In BLS Library’s SARA catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – CAMBRIDGE.
Preface states: “Like an encyclopedia, the Compendium contains [67] entries for most of the foundational principles and concepts underlying arbitration.” Each Compendium entry provides an overview of key issues. Footnotes in an entry highlight many more sources.
Either search this Compendium by keyword(s) + link to search results or skim the table of contents + link to a potentially useful entry.
Re. the “Related content” to the right of each Compendium entry: BLS researchers will need to search SARA catalog (by a book’s title) or SARA catalog’s “Find a Source” tool (by a periodical’s title) to determine if BLS Library provides a related source. (Contact askthelibrary@brooklaw.edu for help.)
Publication of this online Compendium occurred in Feb. 2023.
In SARA catalog record, click: ACCESS ONLINE VERSION – OXFORD.
Provide 1,700+ peer-reviewed articles on key international law topics. Contain articles from both Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law and Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law. Articles highlight many primary legal sources and include bibliographies.
Tab: Subject lists articles arranged by topic. Also, use the search box (top right).
Tip: Be aware that articles have different dates. Example: article Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) states: “last updated: March 2023.”
Hundreds of additional resources to support international law paper topic research and development appear in these two publicly-accessible BLS Library guides:
